Humiliation

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones (2006)

  Of course he would. It had taken a half bottle of vodka to get him past his bathroom mirror in the Santa suit: floppy peaked cap with white pom-pom, oversize red coat with fluffy white trim, red pants with black synthetic boots that were made of the same material as a child's Halloween costume. This was it, thought Rob, as a cruiserweight-size assistant editor took her place on his lap and a gaggle of girlfriends snapped her photo. The wait between pressing the button and the blinding flash seemed always to take forever. Rob was already drunk. Spots swarmed around in his eyes, making it even harder to focus on what was happening in the rest of the room. The other chefs were no doubt snickering up their sleeves at his sorry predicament. Oh Jesus, oh God, please make it stop, he was thinking. Where is my fucking Santa Claus? Who will save my pitiable restaurant? How will I escape this headlong rush to shame, embarrassment, disappointment, and ruin? Is this the bottom of the barrel? How much lower can I go? Rob pictured himself flogging Ronco garlic presses at mall openings, doing infomercials for fat-free grills, print ads for Lomotil and Kaopectate. No. It could not possibly get worse than this. "Fuck it!" he said suddenly, unsure if it was he who had said it. He stood up, nearly upending an approaching office manager, and lurched toward the bar. He saw a worried Hitchcock shoot him a look, but he ignored it, making straight for the bar, where two well-built young men in tight-fitting black T-shirts and elf hats served martinis donated by a liquor company. "Give Santa a fucking vodka mart," he snarled, pushing between two representatives of a suburban shopper newspaper. "Santa needs a drink—or he'll put a cluster bomb up your chimney." When the drink arrived, he knocked over a bowl of taro chips but managed to negotiate the thin-stemmed glass, draining the drink in one gulp and quickly demanding another. At some point someone, he wasn't sure who, put a hand on his shoulder, suggesting in the kind of tones you use with a recalcitrant child that he once more take his place in Santa's North Pole workshop. He responded by balling up his fist inside the black polyurethane Santa glove and slamming it as hard as he could into somebody's face.

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  resolution of assembled leaders, Paul, Peter and James included. Even the general emollience that characterizes the narrative of Acts cannot hide the acute polarization and continuing disagreement around that occasion. To reject universal male circumcision for Christians was therefore to attack basic Jewish assumptions about masculinity, and the rejection had wider implications for Christianity in the Hellenistic world. As a theme in Paul’s thought, it rides alongside a repeated rhetorical construction of himself that reverses the normal priorities of being a man in Hellenistic society. He tells us that he was physically weak (indeed suffering an unspecified ‘thorn in the flesh’); lacking in rhetorical skill (an essential quality of a good citizen); willingly a labourer alongside women and even slaves; all this alongside a readiness to suffer ill-treatment and even imprisonment at the hands of worldly powers. [6] Moreover, Paul is only imitating the example of his Saviour and Lord, Jesus, who had surrendered all power in order to hang in weakness and humiliation on the cross. That reversed every aspiration of a successful Graeco-Roman man, and so was ‘a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles’ (1 Cor. 1.23). Such images of masculinity undermined and betrayed have remained a constant problem over two millennia for those Christians who want to construct their own version of Christian maleness, with Jesus as a latter- day Hercules (see Plates 6 and 7). Paul did not single-handedly turn baptism into the initiation rite for Christianity. It is clear from his own extended and ill-tempered list of examples of baptism in the Corinthian ekklēsia (1 Cor. 1.11–17) that Christian assemblies were already launched on that path before him, and the ringing statement of gender equality in Gal. 3.28 is likely to have formed part of a formula already used in baptism before Paul quoted it. [7] Nevertheless, at this turning point in the future of Christianity, Paul provided the crucial impassioned arguments for abandoning circumcision alongside baptism, particularly in his letter to the Galatians. The Christian mission could spread unimpeded beyond the bounds of Judaism, beyond even those Gentiles who had long formed the category of theosebeis . [8] And now women potentially had very much more opportunity in Christian life and practice to play an equal part alongside men than ever they had done in Judaism or in most forms of Graeco-Roman religion. They were not barred from any ceremonial observance. Maybe, to begin with, in some communities that might even have included their presidency at the Eucharist. * It is clear from Paul’s authentic letters that he was writing to assemblies where Christian women exercised as much local leadership as men; locally, some of these women may have been seen as superior in authority and social position to the visitor Paul as he travelled round the Mediterranean. That was inherent in the way that these new communities were constituted; many converts to Christianity were no longer welcome in the synagogues or had never been associated with them.

• From Naked Lunch (1959)

  The anesthetist takes advantage of the confusion to pry a large gold filling from the patient's mouth.... I am passing room 10 they moved me out of yesterday.... Maternity case I assume... Bedpans full of blood and Kotex and nameless female substances, enough to pollute a continent... If someone comes to visit me in my old room he will think I gave birth to a monster and the State Department is trying to hush it up.... Music from I Am an American ... An elderly man in the striped pants and cutaway of a diplomat stands on a platform draped with the American flag. A decayed, corseted tenor -- bursting out of a Daniel Boone costume -- is singing the Star Spangled Banner , accompanied by a full orchestra. He sings with a slight lisp.... THE DIPLOMAT (reading from a great scroll of ticker tape that keeps growing and tangling around his feet): "And we categorically deny that any male citizen of the United States of America..." TENOR: "Oh thay can you thee..." His voice breaks and shoots up to a high falsetto. In the control room the Technician mixes a bicarbonate of soda and belches into his hand: "God damned tenor's a brown artist!" he mutters sourly. "Mikel rumph," the shout ends in a belch. "Cut that swish fart off the air and give him his purple slip. He's through as of right now.... Put in that sexchanged Liz athlete.... She's a fulltime tenor at least.... Costume? How in the fuck should I know? I'm no dress designer swish from the costume department! What's that? The entire costume department occluded as a security risk? What am I, an octopus? Let's see... How about an Indian routine? Pocahontas or Hiawatha?... No, that's not right. Some citizen cracks wise about giving it back to the Indians.... A Civil War uniform, the coat North and the pants South like it show they got together again? She can come on like Buffalo Bill or Paul Revere or that citizen wouldn't give up the shit, I mean the ship, or a G.I. or a Doughboy or the Unknown Soldier.... That's the best deal. ...Cover her with a monument, that way nobody has to look at her...." The Lesbian, concealed in a papier mâché Arc de Triomphe fills her great lungs and looses a tremendous bellow. "Oh say do that Star Spangled Banner yet wave..." A great rent rips the Arc de Triomphe from top to bottom. The Diplomat puts a hand to his forehead.... The Diplomat: "That any male citizen of the United States has given birth in Interzone or at any other place...." "O'er the land of the FREEEEEEEEEEEE..." " The Diplomat's mouth is moving but no one can hear him. The Technician clasps his hands over his ears: "Mother of God!" he screams.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  He pulled her head back, her mouth released his goods. It stood perfectly straight. She tried to catch her breath, but couldn’t quite do it, even though she’d learned how to inhale and exhale at an early age. He was losing his patience with her inability to do her job. He stood up and ordered her to stand before him. She wiped her mouth and did as she was told. She bowed her head in resignation. This was different. She would never bow before anyone unless she wanted to. She had no desire to show discontent. His reaction was the same, he could tell she was out of place. No one would do her mentally the way he planned. Physically was imaginable, almost usual. He didn’t allow her to anticipate. She wouldn’t know when ketchup would hit her hamburger. He flung his shirt to the ground and walked toward the darkness. No more melodies flowed from the distant. Now voices eased between repetitive beats and the flow was angry. They spoke about pimping and teaching lessons in the hood. She looked out the window and noticed there were bars on it. Whoever rapped in the background must’ve lived around here. Pretty came back into the blue and folded his arms. “You pay for what?” She stood, humbled and unpolished. Her breasts rested on her pulled-down bra; her panties lay crumpled near her feet. “I pay for whatever you want, sir.” “I will tell you your job again. I want it done to the tee.” He repeated himself and sat down in the chair. Humiliation filled her air. She didn’t care. She transformed and reached the ashtray and puffed from the same cigar. Surprisingly, she didn’t choke. She smoked like a veteran. She placed it in his mouth. Even watched him take two long pulls and blow it in her face. This time she opened her mouth and took in long gray streams of gumption. Her eyes had a different look, almost distant. He was heavily limp. She engulfed him until his piece hit the back of her throat. She placed her hand around the rest that remained. He was thicker than any. She placed her hands on both legs and waited for him to begin. When he did, it felt different. She found a rhythm. “I need noise, bitch!” She slurped on command. She allowed fluid to trail down the sides of her hand as she pumped feverishly. Excitement replaced displeasure. She positioned herself over his leg and gave him what he asked for.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  The lady looked worried, but Dunchil glanced at her without moving an eyebrow. ‘Who is this lady?’ the programme announcer asked Dunchil. ‘That is my wife,’ Dunchil replied with dignity and looked at the lady’s long neck with a certain repugnance. ‘We have troubled you, Madame Dunchil,’ the master of ceremonies adverted to the lady, ‘with regard to the following: we wanted to ask you, does your husband have any more currency?’ ‘He turned it all over the other time,’ Madame Dunchil replied nervously. ‘Right,’ said the artiste, ‘well, then, if it’s so, it’s so. If he turned it all over, then we ought to part with Sergei Gerardovich immediately, there’s nothing else to do! If you wish, Sergei Gerardovich, you may leave the theatre.’ And the artiste made a regal gesture. Dunchil turned calmly and with dignity, and headed for the wings. ‘Just a moment!’ the master of ceremonies stopped him. ‘Allow me on parting to show you one more number from our programme.’ And again he clapped his hands. The black backdrop parted, and on to the stage came a young beauty in a ball gown, holding in her hands a golden tray on which lay a fat wad tied with candy-box ribbon and a diamond necklace from which blue, yellow and red fire leaped in all directions. Dunchil took a step back and his face went pale. The house froze. ‘Eighteen thousand dollars and a necklace worth forty thousand in gold,’ the artiste solemnly announced, ‘kept by Sergei Gerardovich in the city of Kharkov, in the apartment of his mistress, Ida Herkulanovna Vors, whom we have the pleasure of seeing here before us and who so kindly helped in discovering these treasures—priceless, yet useless in the hands of a private person. Many thanks, Ida Herkulanovna!’ The beauty smiled, flashing her teeth, and her lush eyelashes fluttered. ‘And under your so very dignified mask,’ the artiste adverted to Dunchil, ‘is concealed a greedy spider and an astonishing bamboozler and liar. You wore everyone out during this month and a half with your dull obstinacy. Go home now, and let the hell your wife sets up for you be your punishment.’ Dunchil swayed and, it seems, wanted to fall down, but was held up by someone’s sympathetic hands. Here the front curtain dropped and concealed all those on-stage. Furious applause shook the house, so much so that Nikanor Ivanovich fancied the lights were leaping in the chandeliers. When the front curtain went up, there was no one on-stage except the lone artiste. Greeted with a second burst of applause, he bowed and began to speak: ‘In the person of this Dunchil, our programme has shown you a typical ass. I did have the pleasure of saying yesterday that the concealing of currency is senseless. No one can make use of it under any circumstances, I assure you.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  • The army of Christian knights crossed the Balkans and Asia Minor, conquering Antioch in 1098 and liberating Jerusalem in 1099. The First Crusade was far and away the most successful of all the expeditions. Fortified Latin states were established in Jerusalem, Tripoli, o Antioch, and Edessa, with subsidiary fiefdoms established in Galilee, Transjordan, Jaffa, and Ascalon. The states lasted from 50 to 100 years. In Jerusalem in 1099, some knights banded together to provide o hospice for pilgrims (the Knights Hospitaller), and in 1119, others vowed to protect pilgrims on their way to the church of the Holy Sepulchre (the Knights Templar). These knights organized themselves along the lines of religious orders, with a commitment to piety. The Second Crusade • The Second Crusade was called by Pope Eugene III in 1147 because of the shocking collapse of the Latin state of Edessa to the Saracens. • The pope enlisted Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the most influential figures in Christendom, to preach the Crusade, which Bernard did through an extended tour. • This Crusade was led by King Louis VII of France and King Conrad III of Germany. Once more, mob action was carried out against Jews across Germany, leading Bernard and other leaders to condemn such action. • The military effort in the East was a failure, except for the 13,000 troops who—carrying out another, more local program—managed to free Lisbon from Muslim control. The great Kurdish Muslim general Saladin (1138–1192) o overran Jerusalem and eliminated the Latin state there in 1187. The Christians were reduced to occupying the stronghold at o Tyre, a humiliating setback. 227

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Ginette was squirming around like a maniac. It was all we could do to hold her. Meanwhile, of course, the patron had come running in and ordered us to beat it. “Loafers!” he called us. “Yes, loafers; that’s it!” screamed Ginette. “Dirty foreigners! Thugs! Gangsters! Striking a pregnant woman!” … Hearing this the patron , who had now been paid for his drinks and his broken glasses, felt it incumbent to show his gallantry toward a splendid representative of French motherhood such as Ginette, and so, without more ado, he spat at our feet and shoved us out of the door. “Shit on you, you dirty loafers!” he said, or some such pleasantry. Once in the street and nobody throwing things after us, I began to see the funny side of it. It would be an excellent idea, I thought to myself, if the whole thing were properly aired in court. The whole thing! With Yvette’s little stories as a side dish.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Then them motherfuckers stood around laughing as they made Monique lean up against a wall ass-naked as they admired her from behind. They took turns patting her down even though she was all skin, like she mighta had a gun stuck up in her pussy or under her firm coconut titties. One of the white cops jammed two fingers up in her pussy and inserted his thumb in her ass, but Monique took that shit with her mouth closed. All of the others got them some too, squeezing and rubbing, digging in her hole. One of the young heads pressed his dick against her ass and moaned and yummied against her neck. He pumped against her softness, breathing hard, then grabbed her breasts and squeezed them gently, fingering her nipples until he shuddered, wetting up his drawers. Before he left, he bent down and bit her softly on the meatiest part of her ass cheek and thanked her for her civic cooperation. They could only keep Pluto and Ace down for thirty days, but that was long enough to do even more damage to Monique’s situation. By the time her man was free, Monique had gotten put out on the streets and was sleeping on a love seat in Honey Dew’s apartment. Of course, Pluto had some bank stashed away, but when Monique finally got hold of his cash and tried to pay the landlord the back rent and the current rent all at once, he just laughed and threw her money back in her face and told her he already had the necessary paperwork required to put them and all of their shit out in the street, and that’s exactly what the fuckin’ po-po did that next morning. “You wouldn’t be trying this shit if my man was here!” Monique screamed as they tossed all of her shit on the sidewalk. She grabbed some plastic bags and started pushing her clothes inside them, and Honey Dew rushed over to help her. “Well that motherfucker ain’t here,” the landlord said, “and I hope they keep him locked up forever and throw away the fuckin’ key. That way, I’ll never have to see neither one of y’all trifling asses again!” Monique was happy when they released Pluto. They didn’t have enough shit on him to keep him, and as soon as he got out he swung by Honey Dew’s apartment and picked her up and took her to get her hair and nails done, then they hit the stores and shopped for all new shit. “Fuck all that stuff,” Pluto said when Monique told him Honey Dew had had to help her put the contents of their apartment in storage. She was glad she’d held on to his money, though. Too much had gone on for her to even think about crossing Pluto, especially since she knew he wasn’t gonna be locked down forever. “We’ll get new shit, girl. G is gone, but we gone start this shit all over again.”

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  95, makes mention of Peter’s martyrdom, and Ignatius of Antioch, who a few years later alludes to Peter and Paul as exhorting the Romans, have not a word to say about the transfer. The very chronology and succession of the first popes is uncertain. If the claims of the papacy cannot be proven from what we know of the historical Peter, there are, on the other hand, several undoubted facts in the real history of Peter which bear heavily upon those claims, namely: 1. That Peter was married, Matt. 8:14, took his wife with him on his missionary tours, 1 Cor. 9:5, and, according to a possible interpretation of the "coëlect" (sister), mentions her in 1 Pet. 5:13. Patristic tradition ascribes to him children, or at least a daughter (Petronilla). His wife is said to have suffered martyrdom in Rome before him. What right have the popes, in view of this example, to forbid clerical marriage? We pass by the equally striking contrast between the poverty of Peter, who had no silver nor gold (Acts 3:6) and the gorgeous display of the triple-crowned papacy in the middle ages and down to the recent collapse of the temporal power. 2. That in the Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:1–11), Peter appears simply as the first speaker and debater, not as president and judge (James presided), and assumes no special prerogative, least of all an infallibility of judgment. According to the Vatican theory the whole question of circumcision ought to have been submitted to Peter rather than to a Council, and the decision ought to have gone out from him rather than from "the apostles and elders, brethren" (or "the elder brethren," 15:23). 3. That Peter was openly rebuked for inconsistency by a younger apostle at Antioch (Gal. 2:11–14). Peter’s conduct on that occasion is irreconcilable with his infallibility as to discipline; Paul’s conduct is irreconcilable with Peter’s alleged supremacy; and the whole scene, though perfectly plain, is so inconvenient to Roman and Romanizing views, that it has been variously distorted by patristic and Jesuit commentators, even into a theatrical farce gotten up by the apostles for the more effectual refutation of the Judaizers! 4. That, while the greatest of popes, from Leo I. down to Leo XIII. never cease to speak of their authority over all the bishops and all the churches, Peter, in his speeches in the Acts, never does so. And his Epistles, far from assuming any superiority over his "fellow-elders" and over "the clergy" (by which he means the Christian people), breathe the spirit of the sincerest humility and contain a prophetic warning against the besetting sins of the papacy, filthy avarice and lordly ambition (1 Pet. 5:1–3).

• From The Girls (2016)

  and I were still friends and May Lopes was inviting us to the Meadow Club to swim. You could get milkshakes there and grilled cheese sandwiches with lacy frills of burnt cheese. Simple tastes, food for children, everything paid for by signing your parent’s name. I allowed myself to feel flattered, remembering an easy familiarity with Connie. Her house so known to me that I didn’t even think about where each bowl went in the cabinet, each plastic cup, their rims eaten by the dishwasher. How nice that seemed, how uncomplicated, the cogent march of our friendship. That was the moment May stepped toward me, pitching the can of orange soda forward: the soda inside hit my face at an angle, so it didn’t douse me so much as dribble. Oh, I thought, my stomach dropping. Oh, of course. The parking lot tilted. The soda was tepid and I could smell the chemicals, the unsavory drip on the asphalt. May dropped the mostly empty can. It rolled a ways and then stopped. Her face was as shiny as a quarter, and she looked spooked by her own audacity. Connie was more uncertain, her face a flickering bulb, coming to full-watt attention when May rattled her bag like a warning bell. The liquid had barely grazed me. It could have been worse, a real soaking instead of this meager attempt, but somehow I longed for the soaking. I wanted the event to be as big and ruthless as the way my humiliation felt. “Have a fun summer,” May trilled, linking arms with Connie. And then they were walking away, their bags jostling and their sandals loud on the sidewalk. Connie turned to glance back at me, but I saw May tug her, hard. The bleed of surf music carried across the road from an open car window—I thought I saw Peter’s friend Henry at the wheel, but maybe that was my imagination. Projecting a larger net of conspiracy onto my childish humiliation, as if that were an improvement. — I kept a lunatic calm on my face, afraid someone might be watching me, alert for signs of weakness. Though I’m sure it was obvious—a tightness in my features, a wounded insistence that I was fine, everything was fine, that it was just a misunderstanding, girlish high jinks between friends. Ha ha ha, like the laugh track on Bewitched that drained the look of

• From An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (1995)

  My war with lithium began not long after I started taking it. I was first prescribed lithium in the fall of 1974; by the early spring of 1975, against medical advice, I had stopped taking it. Once my initial mania had cleared and I had recovered from the terrible depression that followed in its wake, an army of reasons had gathered in my mind to form a strong line of resistance to taking medication. Some of the reasons were psychological in nature. Others were related to the side effects that I experienced from the high blood levels of lithium that were required, at least initially, to keep my illness in check. (In 1974 the standard medical practice was to maintain patients at considerably higher blood levels of lithium than is now the case. I have been taking a lower dose of lithium for many years, and virtually all of the problems I experienced earlier in the course of my treatment have disappeared.) The side effects I had for the first ten years were very difficult to handle. In a small minority of patients, including myself, the therapeutic level of lithium, the level at which it works, is perilously close to the toxic level. There was never any question that lithium worked very well for me—my form of manic-depressive illness is a textbook case of the clinical features related to good lithium response: I have grandiose and expansive manias, a strong family history of manic-depressive illness, and my manias precede my depressions, rather than the other way around—but the drug strongly affected my mental life. I found myself beholden to medication that also caused severe nausea and vomiting many times a month—I often slept on my bathroom floor with a pillow under my head and my warm, woolen St. Andrews gown tucked over me—when, because of changes in salt levels, diet, exercise, or hormones, my lithium level would get too high. I have been violently ill more places than I choose to remember, and quite embarrassingly so in public places ranging from lecture halls and restaurants to the National Gallery in London. (All of this changed very much for the better when I switched to a time-released preparation of lithium.) When I got particularly toxic I would start trembling, become ataxic and walk into walls, and my speech would become slurred; this resulted not only in several trips to the emergency room, where I would get intravenous drips to deal with the toxicity, but, much more mortifying, make me appear as though I were on illicit drugs or had had far too much to drink.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  And where did we hail from, the good father wanted to know at once. From New York. From New York, eh? Then ye’d better be gettin’ back there as fast as ye kin, me lads, and without another word the big, bloated turnip-faced bastard shoved the door in our face. About an hour later, drifting around helplessly like a couple of drunken schooners, we happened to pass by the rectory again. So help me God if the big, lecherous-looking turnip wasn’t backing out of the alley in a limousine! As he swung past us he blew a cloud of smoke into our eyes. As though to say—“That for you!” A beautiful limousine it was, with a couple of spare tires in the back, and the good father sitting at the wheel with a big cigar in his mouth. Must have been a Corona Corona, so fat and luscious it was. Sitting pretty he was, and no two ways about it. I couldn’t see whether he had skirts on or not. I could only see the gravy trickling from his lips—and the big cigar with that fifty-cent aroma. All the way to Dijon I got to reminiscing about the past. I thought of all the things I might have said and done, which I hadn’t said or done, in the bitter, humiliating moments when just to ask for a crust of bread is to make yourself less than a worm. Stone sober as I was, I was still smarting from those old insults and injuries. I could still feel that whack over the ass which the cop gave me in the park—though that was a mere bagatelle, a little dancing lesson, you might say. All over the States I wandered, and into Canada and Mexico. The same story everywhere. If you want bread you’ve got to get in harness, get in lock step. Over all the earth a gray desert, a carpet of steel and cement. Production! More nuts and bolts, more barbed wire, more dog biscuits, more lawn mowers, more ball bearings, more high explosives, more tanks, more poison gas, more soap, more toothpaste, more newspapers, more education, more churches, more libraries, more museums. Forward! Time presses. The embryo is pushing through the neck of the womb, and there’s not even a gob of spit to ease the passage. A dry, strangulating birth. Not a wail, not a chirp. Salut au monde! Salute of twenty-one guns bombinating from the rectum. “I wear my hat as I please, indoors or out,” said Walt. That was a time when you could still get a hat to fit your head. But time passes. To get a hat that fits now you have to walk to the electric chair. They give you a skull cap. A tight fit, what? But no matter! It fits. You have to be in a strange country like France, walking the meridian that separates the hemispheres of life and death, to know what incalculable vistas yawn ahead.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Fillmore, by this time, was as silent as a clam. Ginette was bolting it through the door, leaving us to face the music. As she sailed out she turned back with fist upraised and shouted; “I’ll pay you back for this, you brute! You’ll see! No foreigner can treat a decent Frenchwoman like that! Ah, no! Not like that!” Hearing this the patron, who had now been paid for his drinks and his broken glasses, felt it incumbent to show his gallantry toward a splendid representative of French motherhood such as Ginette, and so, without more ado, he spat at our feet and shoved us out of the door. “Shit on you, you dirty loafers!” he said, or some such pleasantry. Once in the street and nobody throwing things after us, I began to see the funny side of it. It would be an excellent idea, I thought to myself, if the whole thing were properly aired in court. The whole thing! With Yvette’s little stories as a side dish. After all, the French have a sense of humor. Perhaps the judge, when he heard Fillmore’s side of the story, would absolve him from marriage. Meanwhile Ginette was standing across the street brandishing her fist and yelling at the top of her lungs. People were stopping to listen in, to take sides, as they do in street brawls. Fillmore didn’t know what to do—whether to walk away from her, or to go over to her and try to pacify her. He was standing in the middle of the street with his arms outstretched, trying to get a word in edgewise. And Ginette still yelling: “Gangster! Brute! Tu verras, salaud!” and other complimentary things. Finally Fillmore made a move toward her and she, probably thinking that he was going to give her another good cuff, took it on a trot down the street. Fillmore came back to where I was standing and said: “Come on, let’s follow her quietly.” We started off with a thin crowd of stragglers behind us. Every once in a while she turned back toward us and brandished her fist. We made no attempt to catch up with her, just followed her leisurely down the street to see what she would do. Finally she slowed up her pace and we crossed over to the other side of the street. She was quiet now. We kept walking behind her, getting closer and closer. There were only about a dozen people behind us now—the others had lost interest. When we got near the corner she suddenly stopped and waited for us to approach. “Let me do the talking,” said Fillmore, “I know how to handle her.” The tears were streaming down her face as we came up to her.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Trying to extricate myself I got caught, along with a friend of mine, in the very neck of the bottle. Jacksonville, where we were marooned for about six weeks, was practically in a state of siege. Every bum on earth, and a lot of guys who had never been bums before, seemed to have drifted into Jacksonville. The YMCA, the Salvation Army, the firehouses and police stations, the hotels, the lodging houses, everything was full up. Complet absolutely, and signs everywhere to that effect. The residents of Jacksonville had become so hardened that it seemed to me as if they were walking around in coats of mail. It was the old business of food again. Food and a place to flop. Food was coming up from below in trainloads—oranges and grapefruit and all sorts of juicy edibles. We used to pass by the freight sheds looking for rotten fruit—but even that was scarce. One night, in desperation, I dragged my friend Joe to a synagogue, during the service. It was a Reformed congregation, and the rabbi impressed me rather favorably. The music got me too—that piercing lamentation of the Jews. As soon as the service was over I marched to the rabbi’s study and requested an interview with him. He received me decently enough—until I made clear my mission. Then he grew absolutely frightened. I had only asked him for a handout on behalf of my friend Joe and myself. You would have thought, from the way he looked at me, that I had asked to rent the synagogue as a bowling alley. To cap it all, he suddenly asked me point-blank if I was a Jew or not. When I answered no, he seemed perfectly outraged. Why, pray, had I come to a Jewish pastor for aid? I told him naively that I had always had more faith in the Jews than in the Gentiles. I said it modestly, as if it were one of my peculiar defects. It was the truth too. But he wasn’t a bit flattered. No, siree. He was horrified. To get rid of me he wrote out a note to the Salvation Army people. “That’s the place for you to address yourself,” he said, and brusquely turned away to tend his flock. The Salvation Army, of course, had nothing to offer us. If we had had a quarter apiece we might have rented a mattress on the floor. But we hadn’t a nickel between us. We went to the park and stretched ourselves out on a bench.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Two of them were saints, if I know what a saint is; particularly Gupte who was found one morning with his throat cut from ear to ear. In a little boarding house in Greenwich Village he was found one morning stretched out stark naked on the bed, his flute beside him, and his throat gashed, as I say, from ear to ear. It was never discovered whether he had been murdered or whether he had committed suicide. But that’s neither here nor there. … I’m thinking back to the chain of circumstances which has brought me finally to Nanantatee’s place. Thinking how strange it is that I should have forgotten all about Nanantatee until the other day when lying in a shabby hotel room on the Rue Cels. I’m lying there on the iron bed thinking what a zero I have become, what a cipher, what a nullity, when bango! out pops the word: NONENTITY! That’s what we called him in New York—Nonentity. Mister Nonentity. I’m lying on the floor now in that gorgeous suite of rooms he boasted of when he was in New York. Nanantatee is playing the good Samaritan; he has given me a pair of itchy blankets, horse blankets they are, in which I curl up on the dusty floor. There are little jobs to do every hour of the day—that is, if I am foolish enough to remain indoors. In the morning he wakes me rudely in order to have me prepare the vegetables for his lunch: onions, garlic, beans, etc. His friend, Kepi, warns me not to eat the food—he says it’s bad. Bad or good what difference? Food! That’s all that matters. For a little food I am quite willing to sweep his carpets with a broken broom, to wash his clothes and to scrape the crumbs off the floor as soon as he has finished eating. He’s become absolutely immaculate since my arrival: everything has to be dusted now, the chairs must be arranged a certain way, the clock must ring, the toilet must flush properly. … A crazy Hindu if ever there was one! And parsimonious as a string bean. I’ll have a great laugh over it when I get out of his clutches, but just now I’m a prisoner, a man without caste, an untouchable. … If I fail to come back at night and roll up in the horse blankets he says to me on arriving: “Oh, so you didn’t die then? I thought you had died.” And though he knows I’m absolutely penniless he tells me every day about some cheap room he has just discovered in the neighborhood. “But I can’t take a room yet, you know that,” I say. And then, blinking his eyes like a Chink, he answers smoothly: “Oh, yes, I forgot that you had no money. I am always forgetting, Endree.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The Vicar would soon play a sterner game than cricket, while Alec must put away his law books and take unto himself a pair of wings—funny to associate wings with Alec. Colonel Antrim had hastily got into khaki and was cursing and swearing, no doubt, at the barracks. And Roger—Roger was somewhere in France already, justifying his manhood. Roger Antrim, who had been so intolerably proud of that manhood—well, now he would get a chance to prove it! But Jonathan Brockett, with the soft white hands, and the foolish gestures, and the high little laugh—even he could justify his existence, for they had not refused him when he went to enlist. Stephen had never thought to feel envious of a man like Jonathan Brockett. She sat smoking, with his letter spread out before her on the desk, his absurd yet courageous letter, and somehow it humbled her pride to the dust, for she could not so justify her existence. Every instinct handed down by the men of her race, every decent instinct of courage, now rose to mock her so that all that was male in her make-up seemed to grow more aggressive, aggressive perhaps as never before, because of this new frustration. She felt appalled at the realization of her own grotesqueness; she was nothing but a freak abandoned on a kind of no-man’s-land at this moment of splendid national endeavour. England was calling her men into battle, her women to the bedsides of the wounded and dying, and between these two chivalrous, surging forces she, Stephen, might well be crushed out of existence—of less use to her country, she was, than Brockett. She stared at her bony masculine hands, they had never been skilful when it came to illness; strong they might be, but rather inept; not hands wherewith to succour the wounded. No, assuredly her job, if job she could find, would not lie at the bedsides of the wounded. And yet, good God, one must do something! Going to the door she called in the servants: ‘I’m leaving for England in a few days,’ she told them, ‘and while I’m away you’ll take care of this house. I have absolute confidence in you.’ Pierre said: ‘All things shall be done as you would wish, Mademoiselle.’ And she knew that it would be so. That evening she told Puddle of her decision, and Puddle’s face brightened: ‘I’m so glad, my dear, when war comes one ought to stand by one’s country.’ ‘I’m afraid they won’t want my sort . . .’ Stephen muttered. Puddle put a firm little hand over hers: ‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that, this war may give your sort of woman her chance. I think you may find that they’ll need you, Stephen.’ 3There were no farewells to be said in Paris except those to Buisson and Mademoiselle Duphot.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Waldo sought counsel from a priest, who told him there were many ways to heaven, but if he would be perfect, he must obey Christ’s precepts, and go and sell all that he had and give to the poor, and follow him. It was the text that had moved Anthony of Egypt to flee from society. Waldo renounced his property, sent his two daughters to the convent of Fontevrault, gave his wife a portion of his goods, and distributed the remainder to the poor. This was about 1170. His rule of life, Waldo drew from the plain precepts of the Bible. He employed Bernard Ydros and Stephen of Ansa to translate into the vernacular the Gospels and other parts of the Scriptures, together with sayings of the Fathers. He preached, and his followers, imitating his example, preached in the streets and villages, going about two by two.1058 When the archbishop of Lyons attempted to stop them, they replied that "they ought to obey God, rather than men." Very unexpectedly the Waldenses made their appearance at the Third Lateran council, 1179, at least two of their number being present. They besought Alexander III. to give his sanction to their mode of life and to allow them to go on preaching. They presented him with a copy of their Bible translation. The pope appointed a commission to examine them. Its chairman, Walter Map, an Englishman of Welsh descent and the representative of the English king, has left us a curious account of the examination. He ridicules their manners and lack of learning.1059 They fell an easy prey to his questionings, like birds, as he says, who do not see the trap or net, but think they have a safe path. He commenced with the simplest of questions, being well aware, as he said, that a donkey which can eat much oats does not disdain milk diet. On asking them whether they believed in the persons of the Trinity they answered, "Yes." And "in the Mother of Christ?" To this they also replied "Yes." At that the committee burst out laughing at their ignorance, for it was not proper to believe in, but to believe on, Mary. "Being poor themselves, they follow Christ who was poor,—nudi nudum Christum sequentes. Certainly it is not possible for them to take a more humble place, for they have scarcely learned to walk. If we admit them, we ourselves ought to be turned out." This vivacious committee-man, who delighted so much in chit-chat, as the title of his book indicates, further says that the Waldenses went about barefooted, clad in sheep-skins, and had all things common like the Apostles. Without calling the Waldenses by name, the council forbade them to preach. The synod of Verona, 1184, designated them as "Humiliati, or Poor Men of Lyons," and anathematized them, putting them into the same category with the Cathari and Patarines. Their offence was preaching without the consent of the bishops.

• From The Girls (2016)

  motorcycle like it was a shot pet. Practically cradling it in his arms. “It’s not broken,” I said inanely. “You’re a fucking nutcase,” he muttered. He ran his hands along the body of the bike and held a shard of orange metal up to Peter. “You believe this shit?” When Peter looked at me, his face solidified with pity, which was somehow worse than anger. I was like a child, warranting only abbreviated emotions. Connie appeared in the doorway. “Knock knock,” she called, the keys hanging from a crooked finger. She took in the scene: Henry squatting by the motorcycle; Peter’s arms crossed. Henry let out a harsh laugh. “Your friend’s a real bitch,” he said, shooting me a look. “Evie knocked it over,” Peter said. “You fucking kids,” Henry said. “Get a babysitter next time, don’t hang around with us. Fuck.” “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice small, but nobody was listening. Even after Peter helped Henry right the motorcycle, peering closely at the break—“It’s just cosmetic,” he announced, “we can fix it pretty easy”— I understood that other things had broken. Connie studied me with cold wonder, like I’d betrayed her, and maybe I had. I’d done what we were not supposed to do. Illuminated a slice of private weakness, exposed the twitchy rabbit heart.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Momma spoke to all the passersby but didn't stop to chat. She explained over her shoulder that we were going to the doctor and she'd “pass the time of day” on our way home. Until we reached the pond the pain was my world, an aura that haloed me for three feet around. Crossing the bridge into whitefolks' country, pieces of sanity pushed themselves forward. I had to stop moaning and start walking straight. The white towel, which was drawn under my chin and tied over my head, had to be arranged. If one was dying, it had to be done in style if the dying took place in whitefolks' part of town. On the other side of the bridge the ache seemed to lessen as if a whitebreeze blew off the whitefolks and cushioned everything in their neighborhood— including my jaw. The gravel road was smoother, the stones smaller and the tree branches hung down around the path and nearly covered us. If the pain didn't diminish then, the familiar yet strange sights hypnotized me into believing that it had. But my head continued to throb with the measured insistence of a bass drum, and how could a toothache pass the calaboose, hear the songs of the prisoners, their blues and laughter, and not be changed? How could one or two or even a mouthful of angry tooth roots meet a wagonload of powhitetrash children, endure their idiotic snobbery and not feel less important? Behind the building which housed the dentist's office ran a small path used by servants and those tradespeople who catered to the butcher and Stamps' one restaurant. Momma and I followed that lane to the backstairs of Dentist Lincoln's office. The sun was bright and gave the day a hard reality as we climbed up the steps to the second floor. Momma knocked on the back door and a young white girl opened it to show surprise at seeing us there. Momma said she wanted to see Dentist Lincoln and to tell him Annie was there. The girl closed the door firmly. Now the humiliation of hearing Momma describe herself as if she had no last name to the young white girl was equal to the physical pain. It seemed terribly unfair to have a toothache and a headache and have to bear at the same time the heavy burden of Blackness. It was always possible that the teeth would quiet down and maybe drop out of their own accord. Momma said we would wait. We leaned in the harsh sunlight on the shaky railings of the dentist's back porch for over an hour. He opened the door and looked at Momma. “Well, Annie, what can I do for you?” He didn't see the towel around my jaw or notice my swollen face. Momma said, “Dentist Lincoln. It's my grandbaby here. She got two rotten teeth that's giving her a fit.” She waited for him to acknowledge the truth of her statement.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Past sins enough were written against her to call for severe treatment. She was forced to surrender Rimini, Faenza and Ravenna, and was made to drink the cup of humiliation to its dregs. The city renounced her claim to nominate to bishoprics and benefices and tax the clergy without the papal consent. The Adriatic she was forced to open to general commerce. Her envoys, who appeared in Roma to make public apology for the sins of the proud state, were subjected to the insult of listening on their knees to a service performed outside the walls of St. Peter’s and lasting an hour; at every verse of the Miserere the pope and 12 cardinals, each with a golden rod, touched them. Then, service over, the doors of the cathedral were thrown open and absolution pronounced.830 The next time Venice was laid under the papal ban, the measure failed. Julius’ plans were next directed against the French, the impudent invaders of Northern Italy and claimants of sovereignty over it. Times had changed since the pope, as cardinal Julian Rovere, had accompanied the French army under Charles VIII. The absolution of Venice was tantamount to the pope’s withdrawal from the alliance of Cambrai. By making Venice his ally, he hoped to bring Ferrara again under the authority of the holy see. The duchy had flourished under the warm support of the French. Julius now made a far-reaching stroke in securing the help of the Swiss, who had been fighting under the banners of France. The hardy mountaineers, who now find it profitable to entertain tourists from all over the world, then found it profitable to sell their services in war. With the aid of their vigorous countryman, Bishop Schinner of Sitten, afterwards made cardinal, the pope contracted for 6,000 Swiss mercenaries for five years. The localities sending them received 13,000 gulden a year, and each soldier 6 francs a month, and the officers, twice that sum. As chaplain of the Swiss troops, Zwingli went to